Welcome to a Hump Day (“Дзень горба” in Belarusian): Wednesday, November 19, 2025 and World Toilet Day. Below are Roman public toilets from the ancient city of Ostia Antica, the port of Rome. It looks as if the Romans did their business right next to their pals. I wonder if they had separate facilities for men and women.
It’s also National Blow Bagpipes Day, National Macciato Day, Equal Opportunity Day, National Zinfandel Day, National Carbonated Beverage with Caffeine Day (?), and Play Monopoly Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 1 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Breaking News: The Senate voted unanimously to ask the DOJ to release all the material relating to Epstein. This means that the bill will become law (Trump has to sign it) and then they have 30 days to cough up the goods.
The House on Tuesday approved a bill directing the Justice Department to release all files related to its investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a near-unanimous vote that was a stunning turn for an effort that Republicans had worked for months to kill.
Hours later, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, won unanimous agreement for the Senate to pass the measure as soon as it arrived in the chamber, which would clear it for President Trump’s signature. Mr. Trump, who toiled for months to derail the bill but reversed himself once it was clear it would pass overwhelmingly, has said he would sign it.
In the House, the 427-to-1 vote came after Democrats, joined by a tiny group of Republican defectors, succeeded in forcing the legislation to the floor over the vehement opposition of President Trump and G.O.P. leaders. It reflected how the Epstein affair and the president’s handling of it has fractured Mr. Trump’s political coalition and suggested a slip in his iron grip on his party.
The sole lawmaker to vote “no” was Representative Clay Higgins, a far-right Republican from Louisiana.
*The UN has approved Trump’s peace plan for the war in Gaza. But I doubt it will bring the peace everyone wants.
The UN Security Council passed a US-drafted resolution Monday that aims to move beyond the fragile truce in Gaza to a more sustainable peace and the reconstruction of the devastated enclave.
The 15-member council voted 13 to 0 in favor of the resolution, with abstentions by Russia and China, which declined to use their veto power to block the measure.
The resolution was intended to add international legitimacy to US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan, parts of which formed the basis of the ceasefire that took effect in the Gaza Strip last month. The United States had lobbied hard for its passage, which was praised by Trump in a lengthy post on social media.
The resolution authorized elements of the plan, including the establishment of the “Board of Peace” as a transitional authority and the creation of a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza, according to a draft seen by CNN.
Trump said Monday that “the members of the Board, and many more exciting announcements, will be made in the coming weeks.”
Some diplomatic sources said the resolution will help grant the authority for countries to participate in the ISF, as it will now have UN backing.
US Ambassador to the UN Michael Waltz said Monday that the ISF, “a strong coalition of peacekeepers, many from Muslim majority nations like Indonesia, Azerbaijan and others,” will deploy to Gaza “under a unified command” in order to “secure Gaza streets … oversee demilitarization … protect civilians and … escort aid through safe corridors.”
Well, it sounds good, and gives a UN imprimatur to countries who could participate in the peacekeeping force that would either disarm Hamas or replace it after it disarms. And there is the rub. Hamas will not disarm voluntarily, and it’s said so. They are still in command in Gaza and will not give up that command. Further, as the next article notes, NO country in the Middle East would volunteer to be part of the peacekeeping, which means having a military presence in Gaze. Read historian Benny Morris’s article that I’ll cite next:
*However, Benny Morris argues, in a Quillette article called “The Middle East Powder Keg,” that the peace deal is unlikely to keep the peace for very long, and that the war is likely to start up again.
According to the 2o-point peace plan Trump announced last month, an “interim” Palestinian government and an “international” military/police “stabilisation” force (ISF), both nominally supervised by an ill-defined multilateral “Board of Peace,” was now supposed to disarm Hamas and “demilitarise” the Strip as the IDF gradually withdrew to a “perimeter” along the old Israel-Gaza border. Then, with funds from oil-rich Arab states, the international community was to begin reconstructing the Strip’s infrastructure and housing, mostly destroyed in Israel’s two-year-long air and ground campaign against the Hamas terrorists.
The plan also vaguely envisioned the establishment of a Palestinian “state” somewhere down the road. (Though France, Canada, Belgium, Britain, and other countries “recognised” that state last September, it is difficult to see how it will become a reality anytime soon.) Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had initially hoped that the unfolding process would be accompanied by the resettlement of many of Gaza’s 2.3 million impoverished and traumatised inhabitants in foreign lands. Extreme right-wing Israelis hoped that Jews would begin settling in the Strip’s vacated spaces.
But none of this is happening. The Arab inhabitants don’t want to go anywhere and/or are not being allowed out by Hamas and Egypt, which controls the Strip’s southwestern border. Even if they were able to leave, no country—Arab or otherwise—is willing to take them in. Last week, about 150 Gazans, secretly marshalled by Israel and the US, landed in Johannesburg airport without visas. After spending twelve hours in the plane, they were given temporary asylum by the South African authorities. Last May, about fifty Gazans were similarly clandestinely transferred to the Far East. But these are drops in the ocean.
Hamas, meanwhile, has resolutely proclaimed that it will not disarm and its armed fighters continue to patrol the streets and marketplaces, demonstrating its intention to govern the Strip. Israel refuses to fully withdraw from the Strip or allow its reconstruction unless Hamas disarms and hands over governance to unspecified “others.” (The Netanyahu government has so far declined to divulge who.) Netanyahu continues to veto the admission of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority forces into the Strip and the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.
The Trump Administration, despite strenuous efforts, has been unable to establish an “interim” Arab administration or recruit Arab states willing to send troops/police to man the ISF. The main problem is that countries—especially Arab countries—are unwilling to contribute forces willing and able to confront and disarm Hamas. Despite its heavy losses in the war, Hamas is still armed to the teeth and in firm control of some 85 percent of the Strip’s population, who either support it or are cowed by its brutal behaviour (in recent weeks, Hamas fighters have executed or knee-capped hundreds of local opponents). Anyone trying to disarm Hamas or “demilitarise” the Strip—that is, destroy Hamas’s underground tunnel network and its stockpiles of munitions and weapons—will immediately be branded Israeli “collaborators” by Hamas and much of the Arab world. So far, the only country hinting that it is willing to send troops is (Muslim) Indonesia, but Jakarta is speaking of humanitarian assistance and “peace-keeping,” not taking on or disarming Islamist gunmen.
There’s a lot more, but it’s a long article and you can read it for yourself. Most important, no countries want to participate in the peacekeeping force. Until and unless such a force can be put together, Hamas will patrol the non-Israeli-controlled parts of Gaza and the war is likely to begin again. As for the two-state solution, that’s not going to happen—at leaast not in our lifetimes.
*There’s not much doubt that the ruler of Saudi Arabia, namely Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was responsible for the killing of journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi, who in 2018 was apparently killed and dismembered after being lured into the Saudi embassy in Istanbul under false pretenses. (Khashoggi was not very smart to go inside!). bin Salman is also a dictator who represses political dissent within as well as outside his country, imprisoning and/or killing his opponents when he can. But because he runs a country full of oil, has helped the U.S. in some ways, and has even enacted some liberalizing reforms, Trump is making nice with him—to the extent that he’s brushing off criticism for the Khashoggi murder.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Washington Post opinion columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying “things happen” and that he did not hold the Saudi leader responsible for the 2018 murder despite a U.S. intelligence report assessing the opposite.
THINGS HAPPEN? How callous can you get. What “happened” is that bin Salman probably ordered Khashoggi’s murder. There’s more: Trump says, against the U.S.’s own intelligence services, that bin Salman had nothing to do with the murder.
“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but [Mohammed] knew nothing about it,” Trump said in response to a question about Khashoggi. “And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”
Mohammedarrived to a grand welcome from Trump at the White House on Tuesday, greeted at the South Portico with an honor guard of black horses and herald trumpeters, a remarkable turnaround for the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia who had been branded a pariah in 2018 after the CIA concluded that he had approved the killing of Khashoggi.
“[We] at The Washington Post will continue to remind you that one of our colleagues in the not-so-distant past was murdered,” Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post’s director of press freedom initiatives, told NPR on Tuesday. “That’s not something we can just wipe under the rug or forget about.” [JAC: Khashoggi reported for the Post.]
Trump offered a chummy welcome to Mohammed in the Oval Office, grasping his hand and wrist while mocking former president Joe Biden for offering a fist bump to the crown prince in 2022 because he did not want to shake hands with a man whose human rights record had been blasted by the U.S. intelligence community.
“Trump doesn’t give a fist pump. I grab that hand. I don’t give a hell where that hand’s been,” Trump said, calling the crown prince “one of the most respected people in the world.”
Trump called the inquiry about Khashoggi from ABC News reporter Mary Bruce a “horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question,” adding that “I think the license should be taken away from ABC, because your news is so fake and it’s so wrong.”
Here we have two odious men. And both are murderers if you count the several dozen purported drug smugglers Trump had incinerated in boats off South America. I still want to know how the administration knew those boats had drugs. They could have stopped them to inspect them, and then blew them up if they offered armed resistance, but it’s still not been reported how Trump is so sure those boats had drugs. And even if they did, you try to capture the smugglers and then try them in a court of law, not murder them on the high seas. All this stuff is infinitely depressing.
*Larry Summers, the former President of Harvard, is now known to have had a cozier relationship with the late Jeffrey Epstein, and has announced that he’ll “step back from public commitments.”
Larry Summers, Harvard’s former president and a former Treasury secretary, said Monday that he would be stepping back from public commitments following the release of emails between him and Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Mr. Summers said in a statement Monday. “I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.”
Mr. Summers added that he would continue teaching as an economics professor at Harvard, though he did not specify which public commitments he would be stepping back from.
The Yale Budget Lab said Mr. Summers has indicated he would be withdrawing from his role in its advisory group. The Hamilton Project, an economics policy arm of the Brookings Institution, said the same. A spokeswoman for the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, said Mr. Summers would be ending his fellowship there immediately. The Center for Global Development, another think tank, said Mr. Summers was stepping down as board chair.
On Tuesday, the Economics Club of New York said that a webinar with Mr. Summers that had been scheduled for Wednesday and promoted on Monday “has been postponed.”
The relationship between Mr. Summers and Mr. Epstein was previously known. Mr. Summers had sought money from Mr. Epstein for a poetry foundation led by his wife, Elisa New, an emerita Harvard literature professor.
But emails released last week showed a cozier relationship that included Mr. Summers seeking romantic advice and trading banter with Mr. Epstein over several years. The communications stretched to 2019, long after Mr. Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges related to soliciting a minor for prostitution. In 2018, The Miami Herald published a deeply reported article about Mr. Epstein’s abuse of young girls. Mr. Epstein died while in custody in 2019, which was ruled a suicide.
Summers is also known to have flown to Epstein’s private island, Little St. James, using Epstein’s private jet. Not that looks incriminating. And why did Summers seek romantic advice from Epstein? I won’t damn everybody associated with the sexual predator, but Summers had a much closer (and much more dubious) relationship with Epstein than did other people. We’ll see if anything more comes out when they release all the Epstein files (see first item above).
*Here’s a new biological phenomenon: the queen of one species of ant invades the nest of a different species(but one nearly always in the same genus), does some witchcraft so that the workers kill their own queen, and then the invader queen takes over the nest, forcing the workers to serve her. From the NYT:
The ant world is filled with Machiavellian dramas as the insects quest for control of colonies. Now experts have identified a kind of regicide that has never been documented before: Some parasitic ant queens can sneak into a colony and trick worker ants to kill their real queen, fomenting violent revolution against their own mother.
“It’s like a story out of ‘Game of Thrones,’” said Daniel Kronauer, an evolutionary biologist at the Rockefeller University in New York who was not involved with the study.
The discovery was made by an ant enthusiast in Japan and described Monday in the journal Current Biology.
Taku Shimada is not a scientist by training, but he has spent years observing, raising and learning about the insects. Ant researchers are familiar with his ant photography, his ant husbandry and his tenacity in traveling the world in search of rare ant species.
One day a few years ago, he found an ant queen of a parasitic species, Lasius orientalis, in a mountainous region in Japan. The species is known to take over the colonies of other ant species, but scientists weren’t sure how. So Mr. Shimada took the queen back to his home, set up a camera and introduced the queen to another species.
He watched in fascination as, over the course of several hours, the parasitic queen approached the colony’s true queen. First, it sprayed her with a substance — most likely defensive formic acid — and quickly retreated. That prompted the worker ants, which are the queen’s daughters, to begin biting her antennae, legs and abdomen.
Eventually, they killed the queen. The throne was empty.
Now why has this evolved (and it clearly has evolved given the complexity of the behavior and the results)? Almost certainly because nests are usually started by a single queen, inseminated during a nuptial flight, burrowing underground and starting a nest by laying eggs, which produce both workers (diploid) and useless drones (from unfertilized eggs). This is a perilous time, as there are not workers around to protect the queen and she’s subject to predation and other dangers. By getting your own ready-made nest complete with workers, the invader queen avoids those problems. Now it’s been known for some time that this can occur, but always by the invading queen directly killing the resident queen. In this case it’s more complex: the invader sprays the resident queen with some chemicals that cause her own offspring to kill her. But why don’t the resident workers kill the invading queen, especially when she’s of a different species? Most likely because the invader quickly acquires the scent of the resident workers, so they’re duped into thinking that she is their real queen. As Leslie Orgel said, “Evolution is cleverer than you are.”
To see a paper on regular parasitism in which one queen kills another, illustrated with cool photos and drawings, go here. (The paper also talks about how these systems evolve.)
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili recalls her younger and (more) arrogant years. The photo is clearly from when Hili was younger:
Hili: One of us was a living icon, and the other just a wooden god.
Andrzej: Do you recall that?
Hili: Oh yes, I was so young and so arrogant at the time.
In Polish:
Hili: Jedno z nas jest żywym idolem, a drugie tylko drewnianą figurką.
Ja: Pamiętasz to?
Hili: No tak, byłam wtedy bardzo młoda i bardzo zarozumiała.
*******************
I got my copy of Matthew’s book, autograph and, per my request, with a cat drawn in it. (The “baseball” stuff refers to a small bit in the book when Crick attended a baseball game in NYC. From the cryptic reference in one of Crick’s letters, I managed to track down the exact game).
From: The Dodo Pet:
From: The 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/Epic Fails!!!. Is this real?
From Nancy:
For some reason this post by Masih is not embeddable, but she’s back to describing the oppression of women in the Middle East. Here’s a screenshot, click to see the link:
From Malcolm. I’m having trouble embedding tweets (Twitter was wonky yesterday), so I’ll try screenshots:
Two my feed. Remember the red hands; they appear sporadically on Jew haters (see below):
Enlarged: Jew haters at the Oxford Union, a hotbed of antisemitism:
A good mom:
One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
A Dutch Jewish infant and his mom were gassed as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. He was about one year old. Had he lived, he’d be 84 today. https://t.co/QTryhfcPrI
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) November 19, 2025
Two from Matthew. This first one he calls “your 2026 style guide.” And no, it won’t come back. OY!
Could see this coming back
— Oregon 🕎🎲 (@oregonthedm.bsky.social) 2025-11-17T20:03:58.617Z
A psychedelic cat:
The origin of “pedigree”:
The origin of 'pedigree'. This type of C12 figure (not a family tree but a way of calculating relatedness – the titles of various relatives have not been put in the circles) looked like a crane's foot, thought medieval folk. So 'pied de grue' and hence 'pedigree'. Source in alt.
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-11-18T09:44:11.468Z
“The UN has approved Trump’s peace plan for the war in Gaza. But I doubt it will bring the peace everyone wants.” Agreed!
I had a male cousin who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s on a farm in rural Michigan and thus did all of the usual chores, and was straight as an arrow. And he did spectacular crochet. Many in our extended family are blessed to have one of his creations.
There was Rosie Greer, big black football player who knitted on planes!
Love the “pied de grue” for pedigree. Never knew that.
The Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon, once had an exhibit of crocheting done by sailors. Because space is tight on ships and crocheting needs almost no room, it was a popular hobby among sailors. And their creations were beautiful.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
One cannot hire a hand; the whole man always comes with it. -Peter Drucker, management consultant, professor, and writer (19 Nov 1909-2005)
Regarding historian Benny Morris (author of Quillette piece): I am about halfway through his 2008 book, “1948: The First Arab-Israeli War” and find it to be very well researched, complete, even-handed, and, of course for me, very informative. He is Israeli by birth, was educated through B.A. there, then PhD at Cambridge, and now continues to live in Israel. Which is to say I trust his opinions. But I am open to and would welcome others who are familiar with his works and the Middle East to comment on “1948” or his publications in general.
Benny Morris is one of the “New Historians” (Jewish historians, like Ilan Pappe and Norman Finklestein, known for castigating the actions of Israel vis a vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) whose reputation has been on the mend of late. To be fair, he gets criticized by both sides.
Here are two critiques, by an historian I respect, on Morris:
https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-quarterly/benny-morriss-reign-of-error-revisited
https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-quarterly/benny-morris-and-the-reign-of-error
Thank you, Roger. Very helpful. I am sure he gets criticized from both sides because he seems to write or at least tries to write without favor or prejudice. He makes it clear that the Jews were fighting for their very existence with the Holocaust very fresh in their experience and the Arabs, whether those of Palestine or those of surrounding Arab entities were fighting to keep the Jews out…a very different mindset.
Though both critiques (1999 & 2005) were written before his 2008 book “1948”. I have only read the first (2005) piece and his criticism does not square with my take-aways from “1948” so far…i am just over 200 pages into the 400-page book. And I write this as a firm supporter of Israel’s right to exist and supporter of a need for Israel to exist.
Thank you for reminding us what the “Red Hands” motif is in Palestine. Gruesome, eh?
On the Strip – I don’t even read propaganda about treaties/agreements. It is for naive westerners and for face saving in the Arab world.
Here’s why – ISIS didn’t have any embassies or borders by choice b/c Islam (of the Hamas and ISIS flavors – they are identical btw) does not permit recognition of non-Islamic polities. Or borders between the Dar al Islam (world of Islam) and Dar al Harb (world of war/kuffirs) – only “brief truces” (Koran).
So any agreement with pigs and monkeys (us) is ab initio null and void.
And the Pals aren’t “victims” or “cowed” into supporting Hamas. Again I write (everywhere!) – there exists an — entire society — whose 100% mission is the cleansing of the area of Jews as prelude to the Umma taking over… the world. This is a divine mission, the Koran leaves no doubt. And they’re serious about this. They don’t want “just… what everybody wants.”
D.A.
NYC
Agree, the book “Nine Lives” Aiman Dean who was a Jihadist and designed a way to mix and disperse a chemical weapon before spying for MI6 (an American journalist outed him and ended that) was eye opening for me.
A major frustration for him was the west refusal to understand that Muslims believe their religion. So if one of the requirements for Mohammed and Jesus to return for Heaven on earth is to retake the holy, they must do it or die trying. He goes into the logic for this for young men as well.
Thanks to Matthew for the origin of “pedigree.”
Regarding the red hands at the Oxford Union: I thought that I read just a week or so ago that they (Oxford Union) had had a significant change in leadership as a response to the past year of antisemitism. Did I infer more than I should have? Jez? Coel? Anybody?
I mostly remember the horrible debate set-up by Oxford Union officials last year that backfired a bit and ended up showing Natasha Haussdorff at her absolute best.
Anybody else get their big payout from Facebook? 🙂
Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation Settlement Administrator has sent you $35.91 USD.
Yes. I bought a book right away.
Yes! 🙂
Nothing yet. But I got about $25 from PayPal into my PP account for something they did wrong.
That could be it; I had mine sent to PayPal – I did get an email saying that it was from FB
The whole huge moral panic around the deeply retarded “Epsteinology” is ridiculous – a long dead old creep basically.
Larry Summers should stand his ground: “So what? I knew nothing of his proclivities which weren’t my business in the first place. Go eff yourself, mob!”
As a defense atty I learned that having disreputable clients or friends isn’t… infectious.
I –despise– these moral panics which (and it really is social media) are so much more a part of our lives now (BLM, Palestine, metoo, climate apocalypticism). There are often problems beneath them, sure, but the volume and madness of the social manias are … terrifying. What if the mob comes … for you?
D.A.
NYC
Pretty much what I have been thinking. Thank you David.
I think I’m not alone in feeling like I never want to hear the name Epstein again. I don’t believe releasing the files will make one whit of difference. It’s too late. The Epstein Files are beyond the reach of reason.
If Trump or Clinton (or really whoever is witch-of-the-week) are not implicated in those files, does anyone think that’ll be it? “The Epstein Files” will just go away? “OH well, I guess Trump ISN’T guilty” is not something we’ll hear. If he -or Clinton- are not implicated in the files, well, OF COURSE the ONLY explanation will be that the files were scrubbed. Faked. You can bet on it. We’ll never be free.
It’s too late for the truth to matter. Not that truth has much meaning anymore anyway, but this is a conspiracy charge that will never, under any circumstance, die.
I don’t agree. It’s a rare opportunity for some accountability. I’ll suffer the chatter gladly if it makes those who think themselves above the rules uncomfortable.
I only meant that nothing will stop the conspiracy. If no evidence of Trumps involvement is found, that will NOT satisfy people. Thats what i meant by the truth doesn’t matter.
How you and Laingholm got that I don’t think there should be accountability or that I don’t care about victims, is a mystery. Sometimes i think people read in what others write what they wanted them to say.
I didn’t read you as actively not wanting accountability. I read you as being annoyed by the constant chatter and valuing an end to the annoyance over making the powerful slightly more uncomfortable.
The truth matters, so much so Epstein took his own life to hide it, along with what? deep shame of being caught… loyalty to the prestige, status of others.
What about the victims they seem to be conveniently forgotten or does that not matter because being lured into some seedy world of high flyers is their fault not some horny well to do.
Remorse NOW! but not so much when it didn’t show you in a bad light.
The truth needs out for the abused and used victims it is not specifically for us.
If you get caught with however much associated bad press for you, so be it.
What role the Epstein files will play in the affairs of Trump is yet to be played out, that in itself may not be trivial to the US citizens.
Thank you for reminding us of the victims- underaged girls sexually assaulted and trafficked. Too bad if anyone is tired of hearing about it. If powerful people had not tried to hide this for so long, some measure of justice may have occurred years ago.
I’m unsure of the whole “trafficked” charges, Emily.
Was he charged with this? – to be fair the whole “trafficked jurisprudence” post dates my practice of law so I’m unsure of what, exactly, that word means….
But..taking the plain meaning (and understand I’ve made little effort in this stupid case)..it seems like the young girls were consensually involved with him, and paid – and paid enough to entice their friends: whether getting on planes, accepting money, or having sex that..as far as I know.. was above the age of consent in all 3 jurisdictions (in Ms. Guiffre’s case. Others have been vague to say the least on details AFAIK)
My concern is more with the social mania and moral panic than the dynamics of the actual case.
D.A.
NYC
From “lived experience” I know that sometimes getting indirect justice/revenge is a healing experience, but many (most?) times it is not.
Before you embark upon a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
–attributed to Confucius.
“The whole huge moral panic around the deeply retarded “Epsteinology” is ridiculous – a long dead old creep basically.”
Only a privileged male (and emotionally-detached I must add) would write something like this.
Yeah, those silly raped girls and trafficked women just need to shut-up and get over it. Virginia Giuffre took it way too hard- suicide? How lame, what’s wrong with her? It’s been years for chrissakes! And rape is way overblown anyway, right?
Thank you.
I’m unsure of the whole “trafficked” charges, Emily.
Was he charged with this? – to be fair the whole “trafficked jurisprudence” post dates my practice of law so I’m unsure of what, exactly, that word means….
But..taking the plain meaning (and understand I’ve made little effort in this stupid case)..it seems like the young girls were consensually involved with him, and paid – and paid enough to entice their friends: whether getting on planes, accepting money, or having sex that..as far as I know.. was above the age of consent in all 3 jurisdictions (in Ms. Guiffre’s case. Others have been vague to say the least on details AFAIK)
My concern is more with the social mania and moral panic than the dynamics of the actual case.
D.A.
NYC
Thanks, Mark.
While I am all for standing your ground against pecksniffs, I don’t see this as applicable here. If a buddy pleads guilty to paying underage girls for sex, I will reevaluate that relationship. This isn’t a moral panic. This is merely healthy moral judgment. If you want to keep being friends with a pedo, feel free to do so. Just don’t be surprised when you are judged harshly.
I agree. It’s more than a moral panic.
I have some friends who are newage spiritual. Does that mean my actual atheism counts for less? Judge harshly if you wish, but be prepared for pushback.
No evidence of pedophilia here. Sexual activity with women of whatever age who are sexually competent but not of the age where an adult can legally rely on their assent is not pedophilia. The one is a sick mind and would warrant the death penalty because incorrigible and always dangerous. The other is just poor impulse control, biologically understandable in the context of the drive to disseminate gametes widely to women of peak fertility even at risk of one’s fortune, freedom, and even life. There is nothing inherently depraved or fucked up about being turned on by a sexually mature 14-year-old woman, and certainly not if she’s 17. Sorry, but there isn’t. Don’t do it though.
“However weak and slender is the string / Bait it with Cunt and it will hold a king,” wrote Robert Burns. (upper case in original.)
I live in a consent16 jurisdiction where the legal age was 14 until about 15 years ago. I can’t get bent out of shape about 17-year-old women showing up willingly and getting taken advantage of by wealthy cads even where prohibited by law. One could even argue (as France did in resisting setting a minimum age at all — they eventually settled at 15) that in setting the age at 18 we are shielding young women from taking autonomous responsibility for their sexuality. Why not 25 when their brains have matured?
I confess that my own response to a friend who had sex with apparently willing 17-year-old women in a consent18 jurisdiction would be, “Wow. Hope he doesn’t get caught”, particularly if the friendship was of particular benefit to me and he was unlikely to take me down with him, as I’m guessing Larry Summers was thinking. I wouldn’t join in, not that I’d expect an invitation. If you’re referring to the earlier conviction with a younger woman, well, what’s done is done, and it still wasn’t pedophilia.
A highschool friend got busted about 10 years ago for trying to lure young teenagers on the Internet. I don’t know if he went to jail. This was decades after I had dropped all my highschool friends upon leaving town to go to university while they stayed behind — we were all misfits charitably called late bloomers, less charitably as incels in the making. I don’t know what I would have done if he and I had, against all expectations, still been friends when that blew up. I suppose it would have depended on whether he would have been more transactionally useful as a friend or more toxic to my public reputation as, for example, if I’d gone back home to be a GP or was running for town council. As it was I didn’t contact him then or since, not out of revulsion but just because I didn’t need to. I hadn’t seen him in 35 years. Why start now?
I wasn’t going to comment on this politically loaded case but I’m going out on this limb, as a friendly act, to support commenters who are getting slagged for not expressing sufficient outrage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent#/media/File:Age_of_consent_-_Global.svg
I agree, that “pedo” was an incorrect choice of label. I chose it because Epstein didn’t confess to going out and having consentual sex with a girl who knew what she was doing and just happened to be slightly underage. He was setting up a system of prostitution deliberately preying on girls who might biologically be a woman but who are mentally still growing up.
That’s not “poor impulse control”.
Epstein wasn’t snared by a honeypot. Epstein pimped underage girls. That’s why I chose the emotionally loaded label.
Edit:
I think your friend could be a useful thought experiment. What would your reaction be, if you knew that he specifically targeted underage girls because they are easy prey?
There’s one problem: Trump started it by campaigning on it. No one was talking about during the Biden years.
Oh come on. There are degrees of friendship. Knowing your neighbor and casual friend sells weed (where weed is illegal) is one thing. Knowing, or, after years of friendship, having a “reasonable person’s” grounds to suspect that your good buddy fucks underage girls and continuing to be his good buddy, is something else.
Of course no doubt those sweet, sweet Epstein donations helped grease the friendship. Maybe they kept Summers’s eyes turned away. Somehow that fact doesn’t make me think any better of him.
I agree 100% about the vileness of assumed guilt by association and trial by j’accuse. Let’s at least wait to see the evidence. (Must I now insert various condemnations of Epstein and Co in order to avoid being tarred as a Bad Person?)
And, Happy Natiional Rocky & Bullwinkle Day (debuted Nov 19 1959) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Rocky_and_Bullwinkle_and_Friends
I’m just starting p. 59 of Matthew’s book, the start of chapter 3 entitled “Watson.” The writing is refreshingly clear and natural. No extraneous fluff. Anyone who was ever a grad student who wasn’t independently wealthy sees themselves in Crick’s experiences so far.
The picture of the men with short-sleeved shirts and ties and short-shorts is indeed laughable. When hairy male limbs are exposed, it’s impossible to conceal what beasts they are. I jest of course.
But it does make you think. Whenever I’ve been in ‘dress-up’ situations on hot days, I’ve been very grateful to be a woman, because I can wear a cool sleeveless dress and sandals, while the men around me are trapped in this sort of invariant western male uniform that they must wear, even when the weather is sweltering – a lined jacket over a long-sleeved shirt with a tight collar and a neck-tie, belted pants, socks, and closed-toe shoes.
The 1960s and 70s made a stab at shaking up pointless conventions and conformity – and I’d say that the male business suit is exhibit one – but this appears to be one convention that has stubbornly resisted any change. I don’t know why men are so attached it to it. Or maybe it’s the fault of women – we don’t want to see their hairy limbs… But again, I jest. And, in any event, it’s not even true – witness how popular calvin klein underwear ads are with women (and of course gay men).
I try to avoid suits and ties as much as possible, but it IS a lille weird that in our culture men have more limited fashion options. It’s been said (and I believe it’s true) that (cis) women don’t dress to be attracttive to men, they dress in competition with other women. whattalknow. I’m no fashionista, but I’m not a fan of the “over-stuffed sausage” look of women’s fashion today.
Re men’s¹ fashion, and JC’s pedigree, I do love his orange walk socks.
Slightly on topic², I recently saw a annotated 3D display of historical European upperclass women’s fashion. Jesus Orange-hosed Tap-dancing Christ! — I can not even imagine what an extreme nuisance all those layers would be; good thing for them they had servants to dress them.
. . . . .
¹ (I internally pronounce “menswear” as relating to male profanity.)
² Why is “OT” also an abbreviation for this? Someone call the acronym police.
It’s probably not illegal anywhere for men to dress as revealingly as women (I routinely do it when I have to dress at all and it is warm), but by convention many would rather sweat. The converse is not true; there are many places where women are not allowed to dress as revealingly as men.
Re “Evolution is cleverer than you are” —
Nah, it’s blindly ignorant and has a near complete failure rate, but it does have a huge budget and buries its mistakes. Various analogies come to mind….